


The Case of the Halloween Horror

by moth2fic



Series: The Malfoy Connection [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Lewis (TV)
Genre: Child Death, Crossover, Death occurs before story starts, Gen but m/m if you squint, Halloween, Lewis Challenge Frightfest., M/M, Part of m/m series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 09:35:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2542880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moth2fic/pseuds/moth2fic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even police and aurors can sometimes be unable to solve a case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Case of the Halloween Horror

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to lygtemanden for rapid proof reading. All remaining errors are my own.

They were in a cul-de-sac off Diagon Alley trying to make sense of a small corpse. Aurors Potter and Weasley were there, having called in their muggle police friends when they realised the corpse was muggle. Draco had tagged along with James, who was not, of course, a muggle, but was definitely muggle police. They had been practising apparating when the summons came. Lewis, the only true muggle in the group, and by far the oldest, felt decidedly out of place. But then, a child's corpse was out of place anywhere, at any time, so he pushed personal feelings aside.

The little body was twisted, broken like a discarded doll, dressed as a traditional witch, with a cobwebbed cloak and a pointed hat. Her face was frozen in an expression of horror, and small hands still grasped an orange basket with the label 'Treats' on the hinged lid. Someone had lovingly painted green warts on her otherwise unblemished cheeks.

The wizards, other than James, were confused by the costume, having no idea of muggle Hallowe'en habits. Even Harry had no childhood experience to draw on. Their own celebrations of the time when the veil between the worlds grew thin would be quite different.

"What do we do?" James said, with a note of desperation. Robbie had no idea. This was a muggle murder, but they couldn't call an ambulance or a scene of crime team here. If they moved the body there was a risk of tampering with evidence, or even losing some vital traces. Harry stepped in, showing he understood the dilemma and Robbie remembered Auror Potter's muggle upbringing.

"We could apparate the entire thing - body, paving stones, anything you think matters. Find us an alley somewhere else to put it and we'll exchange the stones and so on." Harry was the object of stares all round. "Well, they can't investigate here, and we can't investigate at all," he said.

"But we can't investigate in London and if you take her to Oxford all connection with the original crime will be lost. And the child's own origins." As Robbie spoke, a muffled giggle rose eerily from a nearby doorway. It was so inappropriate and unexpected he almost laughed but the hair on his neck rose at the strangeness and he looked at James who was frowning in the magical light Harry had cast. 

"I wonder," said James, "if that's exactly what the murderer hoped." There was a scuffling sound from the same doorway, and Harry instantly raised his wand. The person he immobilised was ordinary enough: a young man with nondescript hair, eyes, features. He was glaring, though that could, Robbie thought, simply be an effect of being caught by the spell. 

Ron restrained him efficiently and Harry released the spell so that he could talk. They waited, aurors, wizards, and one police inspector, looming over him until he broke.

"She were in the way," he whined. "Her mum and me was doing great except she were always underfoot. Last night she came in when we was..." He hesitated, perhaps looking for understanding. "Anyway, I offered to take her trick or treating. I was going to say somebody bigger than me grabbed her, that I didn't know what happened. I wore gloves." He held out hands with pink rubber kitchen gloves still in place. "Then you lot came along and I knew you'd work it out."

Harry was doing something intricate with his wand. "You're a squib," he said. "And we'll assume the child's mother is a muggle. But that's how you knew about Diagon Alley; it doesn't explain how you got here."

"My older brother was a Death Eater," the man said, pride seeping through the words. Another man stepped out of the shadows, wand held ready. 

Robbie supposed it was like a muggle standoff with wands instead of guns. The upshot was predictable enough given that nobody wanted more death; the brothers apparated away, the murderer still tied but no longer held by Ron, leaving the body and the same problems as before. They knew who, after a fashion, though not his name, and why, if he was telling the truth, but not the name of the victim. 

They went with Harry's idea of moving everything to muggle London. The mother would find out what had happened and have the body to bury. Oxford might be able, tactfully, to point the investigation at the mother's boyfriend. 

Meanwhile, Hallowe'en celebrations, wizarding or muggle, were less than alluring tonight. Somewhere out there, monsters, magical or not, were killing innocent children. 

"Let's go home," said Robbie, and Draco did not even try to persuade them to stay. 

James proudly apparated them; Draco had assured him he was no longer at risk of splinching anyone who came side-along. He held tightly to Robbie's wrist, all the same.

Black Oxford spires, coated in mist, crept in and out of visibility. A few children were still about and Robbie had to restrain himself from insisting on seeing them safely home or expressing his distrust of their parents. He was glad James was with him. 

"You know," he said, "under the old ways, before trick and treating got to these shores, she wouldn't have been out. It wouldn't have happened."

"Probably fallen down the stairs next week, instead," said James. "Traditions might change, but people don't."

"As long as you don't change," said Robbie as they entered his flat. James blinked; surely his recent magic surge was change. But Robbie, looking deeper than magic, was content with what he saw.

They would never solve every case and this one was peculiarly distressing; the combination of a child, a celebration and the sheer nastiness of the killing was appropriate to the season and yet violently inappropriate too. But Robbie knew they had done their best, and that there was a chance things might move forward. Meanwhile, James was an honourable policeman, as well as being - well - magic in more ways than one.


End file.
